Mommy's Best Games, Inc. is an independent game developer founded in 2007. Our seventh game, currently in development, is Pig Eat Ball on which we started working in 2013. This is behind the scenes thoughts about game development and marketing.

* Due to the review system for XBLIG games which don't allow for games to pass review, then enter a holding period, we simply have to submit the game for review. If it passes the game is suddenly released, if not, it has to wait a week, then we try again. We'd love to have it reviewed and finished, but the current system doesn't allow for this, so instead we're really certain it will be out this coming weekend (but anything can happen).

UPDATE:

Yes, the game was originally due out Saturday, September 25th, but in a Orwellian reconstruction, I've edited the dates above to reflect the new release target of October 4th. How evil of me! But the evil is mitigated evil because I'm leaving you this note to know I changed it. So you'll know we *weren't* always at war with Eurasia.

What was wrong?

There was an edge-case crash discovered during the awesomely effective community driven QA on the XNA peer review system. Yes, it really works!

We're rebalancing the gameplay to be even tighter, and are fixing up little niggling menu and rendering issues we blew off before.

13.7% MOAR Explosions are being added as well.

---(But where's Grapple Buggy? Read more here. Sales of Explosionade will help fund Grapple Buggy's development!) ---Mommy's Best Games, Inc.is a boutique game developer founded in 2007. We strive to deliver games that push the edges of the medium through gameplay, art, and pie. Our first game, Weapon of Choice, is an award-winning, side-scrolling, action game now available onXbox Live Indie Games. And our second, award-winning game Shoot 1UP is also available on Xbox Live Indie Games.

Mommy's Best Games is currently developing Grapple Buggy, promoting Explosionade and Shoot 1UPfor Windows Phone 7, and working on other secret projects to titillate your fancy.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

So the player has your cool soldier dude is hunkered down behind a barricade. Your soldier can't get a shot off at the player, but he can lob a grenade. He throws the grenade, it flies through the air... oh .. umm.. wow. The grenade just flew way over the player's head. Probably because the player was in a slight depression, lower than the soldier's Y position, and you just estimated the grenade's velocity, cobbling something together.

Time to fix that!Explosionade is our next game, and it features lots of grenades and plenty of explosions. We'll have the official announcement shortly, but I wanted to pull some physics-y code from it for your use!

Here's my game-ready grenade velocity function. It's simple parabolic motion, straight out of wikipedia, but for some reason, sometimes, I'm too lazy too even look that up and rework the equation! So I reworked it for you (and my lazy future-self, when I need it again).

Here's some C# code for the equation.

// targetPos is what you want to hit
// throwPos is where the grenade starts
// Tweak flyTime to make the grenade take longer or shorter to get there
// This simple returns the velocity at which to throw the grenade, and your target is toast!static float flyTime= 2.0f;protected Vector2 ThrowGrenadeVel(Vector2 targetPos, Vector2 throwPos){ Vector2 diff = (targetPos - throwPos); Vector2 grenadeVel; startVel.X = (diff.X) / travelTime; // we don't factor in gravity for X

The player mech on the left anticipates a grenade hit from the enemy Horronyms on the right. Horronyms conveniently have three arms, two for holding their gun, one for throwing grenades, natch.

Simple enough, it uses s = s0 + v0t + 1/2at^2 but reworks it for the initial velocity (v0) here. You just need to have your Grenade.gravityY specified as static public float in your Grenadeclass (or whatever you're using there). I used a gravityY of about 500.0f. Two seconds felt pretty good, giving the player some time to dodge it or shoot it in Explosionade. But you can tweak the flyTime to take longer or shorter. Be aware this does no checking for ceilings, or walls. You'll have to do line of sight tests for those.
If you use the equation and have any problems just leave a comment. Good luck throwing!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Our current 'big' task is to get Grapple Buggy signed by a publisher to release it for Xbox Live Arcade. Oh that, and actually making the game. We want to release the game through XBLA rather than XBL Indie Games as there's more much download traffic, and higher price points.

Faster, faster!

We've been talking to various publishers and have made good headway with them, and all of them really like the look at feel of the game. But, they've all been very sluggish about actually handing out money or guaranteeing a slot for release. We've heard several responses, but the general feel is with the economy still sluggish, it's taking a lots and lots of time and back-and-forth discussions to get companies to agree to a deal. Regardless of all of that, we've been working on Grapple Buggy off and on for some time now and can't wait till gamers get to play it and have it pay off.

I hear an echo! ... an echo.... an echo...

Unfortunately that will have to wait a little while longer. After looking at the MBG coffers, we decided we needed to take a break and work on something more immediate as way to raise money for continued development of Grapple Buggy. First, thanks for purchasing Weapon of Choice and Shoot 1UP. I'm glad you liked the games and we had fun making them! As such we got to work more on Grapple Buggy, which has been looking really cool lately.

Escaping the jaws of death!

Finally, what does all this mean for you, dear gamer? That was the Awesomenews: we're making another cool game! Yes! I consider asking for donations for Grapple Buggy development to be sort of lame. I mean, we make video games; we're not a charity. How about we make a new, fun game for you to play and sell that?!? Yeah, I realize it's a crazy idea.

So there you go, you have to wait longer for Grapple Buggy, but we get to hopefully remain financially solvent, and you get a new game to play. The new game will be revealed shortly, and of course after it's released, it's back to Grapple Buggy development!